


The Legend of Zelda: The Song of Three

by Castanet (mercuriosities)



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Ganondorf isn't evil, Gen, Legend of Zelda: Adult timeline, Link/Zelda in later chapters, Long Shot, Multi, Other, feels.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3522155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercuriosities/pseuds/Castanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Power may most easily fall to darkness, but there are times - few and far between - when it stands strong as a bastion of light against the encroaching evil of the world. </p><p>A Legend of Zelda game imagining where maybe, for once, the Triforce might remain united against the evil of Ganon and Demise.</p><p>(But no promises.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Sands of Time: Ganondorf

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, Everyone! Sorry for the quick author's note; I just wanted to get some acknowledgments out of the way. This fic is written for/based off of the idea by my good friend Harrybmodest. It would not have come to fruition without him. Also thank you to Harryb's younger sister, whom I know contributed a crap ton to the development of this idea. This fic is for you, too. 
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, of course. Chapter 2 should be coming soon. So - enjoy!

  _A long time ago from now, in a land that perhaps has only existed in your dreams, a golden power ruled supreme.  This golden power kept the world alive and magic plentiful, and while there was still strife - for there will always be strife - by and large, this mystical kingdom knew peace._

_But there are those who would seize that golden power for their own ends, and they coveted it. They clashed against each other often, each of them vying for the golden light, reaching their oily, slick fingers to rip it from the sky and claim its power for their own._

_And so the light protected itself; From the heart of it a hero was born whose courage would stand the test of time, a priestess pure of heart and wise in spirit, and a powerful warrior who could stand firm and resolute against the darkness. And for a while, the golden power was safe again._

_There were some times, throughout the course of history, when the hero would fall or the priestess would fade into nothing - but most often, it was the warrior who would succumb to temptation; for power is the hardest line to toe and remain true. Power is as power does - and what it does is corrupt._

_Such is the ebb and flow of the hearts and minds of mortal creatures._

_After a millennia, and then a millennia more, the golden power faded from the minds of the mythical kingdom - but the legends of the hero, the priestess, and the warrior lived on in their hearts and minds._

_You know them too, child - don’t you?_

 

_Here is another one._

\- - - 

When Ganondorf was merely ten years old, his life changed forever - on the day the world he knew and loved was forever doomed.

The Gerudo tribe had wandered into the desert, far beyond its historical territory, all in a bid to escape the everlasting war that had taken over Hyrule some three hundred years previous. The war had consumed everything it touched, and all of the mythical kingdom had been thrown into shadow. The Gerudo elders whispered in hushed voices, when they thought that Ganondorf could not hear, about the kingdom to the east, a home he had never known, and the legendary peace that once reigned there. 

They whispered about a hero, sometimes. They whispered less and less about the hero as Ganondorf grew older.

When he was eight, when the soles of his feet were still scorched from the hot desert sands and his skin was still pink around the edges with sunburn, the Gerudo stumbled across the scattered, routed remnants of a group of people that called themselves the Sheikah. They were different from everything Ganondorf had ever known - they were tall, proud, pale and silver-blonde, with high noses and strange colored eyes. They terrified him. But there was strength in numbers, and the Gerudo - for all of their harsh ways, their magic, and their witchy history, were also cunning and clever, and they knew the strength of the Sheikah would be a welcome addition to their slowly dwindling desert band. 

And there were children, and babies, and Ganondorf had never really seen another child before, so he was happy to have someone other than boring grown ups to play with. He was responsible enough, as the lone boy in a tribe of female warriors, and so the Sheikah were soon comfortable letting him watch their children.

One little girl was named Zelda, and she confused Ganondorf from the very beginning.

She had come with Impa, who said she was her aunt, though there was little familial resemblance. As far as Ganondorf could tell, Impa was Zelda’s only immediate family. The little girl never pointed out anyone as her parents, and Ganondorf knew better than to ask, even then. She was a strange creature, tiny, with masses of yellow hair and bright blue eyes and her ears were _pointed_ , and she liked to laugh and pull on his red hair and tell him his name was silly.

“It’s not,” he protested. He always did. “It’s traditional. It’s _Gerudo._ Don’t you know _anything?”_

"But _I’m_ not Gerudo,” she’d say back in her sing-song voice, “And it sounds silly to me!”

“It’s _traditional_ ,” he would repeat, with all the gravitas of his eight years. “It means Evil’s Bane. My mother told me all the Gerudo kings were named this.”

“Then you have silly kings,” Zelda would reply, and laugh when he got mad, and tell him that he was as red as his hair. He would storm off because he knew that if he yelled then _he_ would get in trouble more than _she_ would, and there was a part of Ganondorf that felt this was wholly unfair, and why did _he_ always have to walk away just because _he_ was the older one?

He often promised himself, and his mothers, that when his time as king of the Gerudo came, things would be more fair.

His mothers would laugh and pat him on the head, and tell him that he would understand when he got a little older. 

And life, for the Sheikah and the Gerudo and the mismatched tribe they became, and all other living things aside continued on, as life is want to do. They wandered by night when the sun was not so hot, slept during the day, conserved water, and hunted the sparse wildlife, and such things became routine.

Then Ganondorf turned ten years old, and the world as he knew it crumbled away like sand on the desert breeze. 

 - - -

The morning after his tenth birthday the sun rose red, and the elders around him - both Sheikah and Gerudo - murmured behind their hands about omens and portentous signs and all sorts of other things. Ganondorf paid no attention to them - no, he had children to look after, and he had spent his whole life being talked about as the next High King of the Gerudo, and he was frankly quite sick and tired of omens and portentous signs. 

This feeling would not fade with time. 

The bloodstain sun had only just risen, and was still sitting on the horizon like a baleful red eye, when two small figures stumbled out from the east into their encampment within hot desert sands.

The immediate silence was palpable.

One was a woman, barely grown, with tattered dirty hair and a ripped dress that sported awful, dark, wet stains. But none of the grime or damage could hide her elegant pointed ears or the clear blue of her eyes, and an immediate ripple washed through the gathered tribe as they all looked upon her - And her child. For indeed, the boy at her side, who could not have been more than seven or eight, sported the same defined features and the same resolute expression. These were not just refugees - these were people who had fought for most of their lives to simply survive.

Ganondorf knew that look, even at ten. He’d seen it in the Sheikah, of course. He’d seen it in Impa’s eyes, and Zelda’s eyes.

Zelda’s eyes, so like the crystal blue of the woman and the boy in front of him. Zelda, with the same ears, the same hair, the same high nose and carved cheekbones -

Ganondorf realized two things in quick succession, then: One, that Zelda was not Sheikah, not by blood. And two, that she had come to the Gerudo for the same reason that these elven-featured strangers had now appeared.

Whatever fate this pair had faced was the fate from which Zelda had fled in the arms of the Sheikah tribe three years before.

“Please,” said the young boy, his quiet plea finally breaking the oppressive silence. “Please, my mother - she’s dying, she -”

In an instant, Impa was on her feet, and within moments had slung an arm around her shoulders. “On your feet,” she said, but the order was a kind one. The minute the Sheikah spoke, the silence that had stalled the Gerudo shattered and instantly, the camp was full of swiftly moving women. “We’ll have you in our medical tent in a moment. Zelda! Help the healers. This woman is injured, and badly. It will take work, but -“

“Wait!”

The cry broke out above the clamor of the camp, and once again, everything stilled.

“Listen,” said the woman, her voice haggard and breaking. “Listen. Listen to me. My son - protect my son. He is - they’re hunting him. Please.” Her fingers, bruised and chapped, grabbed at Impa’s tunic. Her blue eyes were wide and pale, and desperate. “Please. Keep him safe. You must. You _must!”_

She said this, and then her hands dropped from their grip in the fabric of Impa’s clothes, and she shuddered, and she collapsed.

And the little boy took a step back, his hands clenched into fists and face twisted into a grimace of the purest heartrending pain that Ganondorf had ever borne witness in his life.

“Mama - ” he whispered, then bit down so hard that his jaw might have creaked with the effort of keeping his mouth shut - 

But he did not cry.

Impa slowly lowered herself to her knees and laid the woman on her back, and brushed some of her dirty hair from her face. She closed the woman’s sightless eyes with gentle fingers, and then, still on her knees, turned to the little boy.

“Child,” she said, after a long moment of silence, “What’s your name?”

The little boy stared at her with defiance and grief radiating from his every pore, and Ganondorf thought for a moment that he might not answer. But he did.

“Link,” he said, and his voice was very small. “My name is Link.”

“Link,” Impa repeated, and Ganondorf wondered why, then, for she seemed to almost expect this answer. “Link. We will keep you safe, Link. You don’t have to worry about that.” She glanced over at Marin, the leader of the Gerudo, and Marin nodded silently. No - the Gerudo would not turn away a child, not one so obviously in distress.

Something in the little boy seemed to deflate. “Thank you,” he whispered. “But - what about my mother?” 

“We will not leave her,” Marin said, and walked closer. Link looked at her, and Ganondorf had to commend him for taking the appearance of the Gerudo Witch Queen in stride. She was an imposing figure, but a fair one, and the tribe had come to depend on her even political hand. “She will have a desert funeral.” 

Marin bent and picked up the body of the woman, and turned back toward the tribe. “She will stay in the infirmary tent for now. Tonight, we will - we will deal with this. In the meantime, Link, come with me. We will find a place for you to stay.”

The little boy nodded and followed Marin, his eyes never leaving the body of his mother, but for one second when his gaze dropped, and he seemed to notice Ganondorf for the first time -

And the seconds slowed to an absolute halt as golden eyes met blue, and a bright light burst between them.

Ganondorf barely noticed the light itself, but he heard the reaction of the tribe around him. Still, even this was faint and far away, for a searing heat had burst from the back of his left hand and branded itself onto muscle, bone, and memory. He would never forget the white-hot pain tearing through his desert browned skin, nor would he forget the first sight of it - the golden triangle etched on the back of his hand like it had always been there. The golden triangle of light that he would later curse so often, for giving him a destiny that he had never, ever asked for.

He looked up again and saw the utter shock on Link’s face, and knew that this child, this young stranger whose life already contained so much tragedy - he had a golden triangle too. 

Everyone stared at them, surprise and fear naked on the faces of all gathered Gerudo and Sheikah - 

Except for Impa. No, her jaw was set, and her expression was resolute, but there was something sad about her eyes - as if she had expected all of this.

“Ganondorf,” she asked, when the light had calmed and the pain faded away, though the triangle was still bright and glimmering on the back of his hand. He looked at her, silent.

“Ganondorf, where is Zelda?”

 

 


	2. The Stars in the Firelight: Zelda

They burned the boy’s mother at sunset.

Death was not something Zelda dealt with lightly, and the death of a mother even less so. It had not been her mother, no, but it very well might have been. Zelda had never seen another Hylian before, that she could remember - and seeing one dead scared her more than she wanted to admit.

And seeing _another_ one, alive, so alive andso hurting and looking so much like her that she thought he might as well be a part of her - 

That scared her too.

His name was Link, she reminded herself as they stood in the cooling night of the desert. The heat of the funeral pyre beat against her face, and she could feel the crackle of sparks and embers against her skin as they flew into the air, but she paid them no mind. Her gaze was fixed, frozen upon the boy who stared solemn and still at the fire that ate away at the flesh that was once his mother. That clear blue gaze rooted her to the spot, even as it was not directed at her. 

Zelda had thought she was the last of her kind.

She could have told him, she realized, that in the tradition of old Hylia, there is no such thing as real death. She could have told him that as person dies, their flesh goes back to the hands of Din, who then resculpts their body into the red earth. That their heart goes to Farore, who gives their lifeblood to all the living things that still roam the world - and that their wisdom is taken back to Nayru, who weaves what they had learned in their long-short life into the song of law that governs the land. In the tradition of old Hyrule, once relieved of the burden of Wisdom, Power, and Courage, a spirit can then go rest in the hands of Hylia, until the time passes when they must once again take on a shell woven by the three lesser goddesses and walk the earth.

All of this Zelda knew, and she knew it intrinsically, and it had always been difficult for her to understand that other children her age did not have as easy a time understanding these things.

Still, she thought, this boy here, this boy who was obviously Hylian, like her - this _Link_ \- he would understand. She could see it in his blue eyes and the stubborn set of his mouth.

He would understand.

But something held her back from walking over and laying a hand on his shoulder. For even if she felt like she knew him - and she did, she _did,_ goddesses how she knew him, she’d known him her whole life without ever seeing him - the idea of touching him at that moment was an alien one. 

After all, Ganondorf had touched him, she thought ruefully, and look what had happened with that.

She decidedly did not glance at the still-glowing golden triangle that had etched itself onto the back of her hand. She knew, in the way that she _knew_ anything, that it wasn’t going away anytime soon - so worrying about it, thinking about it, or scratching it (even though it itched) was pointless. 

Instead she tore her gaze away from the newcomer and turned to the Gerudo prince himself, in all his darkened glory.

The heat of the fire in front of her was almost overbearing and the frigid desert wind that blasted sand at her back made her shiver, but Ganondorf never seemed bothered. The desert suited him, in all its dichotomies, and like the desert he had his extremes too. But now he was quiet and still, in a way that Zelda wasn’t sure she liked, and his golden eyes never left the fire.

The Gerudo did not bury people, not in the desert. To bury a corpse was to forsake it to scavengers, and for the Gerudo, there was no greater dishonor than to leave a loved one to the vultures and mice. Still, it was unlike them to honor a woman they had never known, and who looked so unlike them, with their traditional funeral pyre. Wood was not easily come by in the desert, and building a pyre itself was a mark of importance for the individual.

They had not had much wood to spare for Link’s mother, but they had done what they could. 

\--- 

The three children stayed at the ashy funereal pyre long after the fire itself burned out, in what would later become a familiar sight - the slight figure of Zelda, flanked on one side by bright, blonde Link and the other by tall, shadowy Ganondorf. They stared silently at the still-smouldering pile of soot, watching as the wind lifted stray flakes of ash into the air and blew them in a whirling dervish of matte black shadow against the clear, starry desert sky. Without the heat of the fire to keep the dry air warm, the wind around them had swiftly turned frigid and the sand that blew along with it stung their legs. They stood there for what could have possibly been hours, until the last of the ash blew out with the wind and the moon overhead lit the desert sands like pale gold.

Link was the first one to turn away. 

He didn’t say much of anything, and it was only by his footsteps shifting in the sand that alerted Zelda to the fact that he was moving. Her gaze flitted between the shadows until she found his green tunic again, lit in emerald slashes in the moonlight, and she turned with him.

He stopped.

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t come with me.” 

“What?”

“ _Don’t_ come with me!” The little blonde boy clenched his hands into fists and whirled around, eyes alight with rage even in the dark night. "Just leave me alone. I don't wanna be here, I don't _know_ you." He gritted his teeth, holding back obvious tears before biting out, "I just wanna go _home._ "

“Where are you going?”

“Does it matter?”

“ _Yes_ , it matters! _You_ matter!”

“No, it doesn’t, it’s none of your business! I’ll go somewhere else, anywhere else, but I _can’t_ stay here.”

“You’re going to get lost,” Zelda retorted, her voice a touch shriller than necessary, and she felt a stab of self-hatred at how angry she sounded. “You don’t know your way around the desert like I do or like Ganondorf does, so you can’t just _wander off_ because that’s _stupid_.”

“You don’t know _anything_ , okay? You’re just a kid, you don’t even know what I can do -“

“She’s right,” Ganondorf said, speaking up for the first time. “If you wander off now you’ll die, and the vultures will find your body tomorrow if the rats don’t get it first.”

“You don’t know anything either!” Link’s voice burst out over the chilled desert air, cutting the stillness of the night like a knife. “You aren’t - you aren’t _anything_ , you don’t _know_ who I am or where I’ve been, and you still have a _home_ , okay?”

“Then go ahead and try,” the Gerudo prince said with cool amusement. “I will not come find you if you call for help.”

“I won’t _ever_ need help from someone like _you!”_

“Is that a promise?”

“Will you two just - _shut up?!”_

The argument halted instantly, and both boys paused and stared at Zelda after her outburst.

“Listen - you both sound _awful_ , alright? You don’t even know each other and you’re shouting like you’re horrible enemies. And you’re _not_.”

She yanked the fabric of her sleeve back from her left hand and let the light from the little golden triangle spill out into the night. 

“I don’t know what this is, and maybe - maybe you’re right, Link, and maybe I don’t know anything. Or anything important, and I know I don’t know you at all - but I know you can’t just leave. This happened when you came here, and - and so no matter what, you’re _supposed_ to be here.”

The two boys stayed silent, and Zelda ducked her head, suddenly deeply unsettled by their matched gazes - for while one was blue and the other gold, they could not have been more identical for intensity.

“We have to stay together,” Zelda said, her voice desperate, as tears of frustration pricked the corners of her eyes. “I just - We do! I _know_ we do! I can’t… I don’t know why, but we do, alright?” And she did, with every fiber of her being she knew that Link’s stubborn recalcitrance and Ganondorf’s cold exterior would be the death of them if it defeated what she knew, but could not explain with the simple vocabulary of an eight year old, to be a truth of her universe. 

Ganondorf shifted his weight then, and peeled back the straps of his Gerudo bracers to reveal the matched triangle on the back of his left hand, and Link undid the hastily wrapped bandages to look at his as well - and in the night of the Gerudo desert, a little thrill ran through the three of them at the sight of the three triangles fitting together like puzzle pieces.

They did not, could not know that this was the first time the Triforce had been completed in over five hundred years, that this was the first time in nearly two thousand that it had come together without war and death and hatred in its wake. Instead, the world was silent as they placed their hands together and watched the corners touch, forming the alien-yet-all-too-familiar shape. 

“Alright,” Link said, quietly, as if he did not want to disturb the gentle golden light. “I won’t - alright. I’ll stay.”

Zelda felt her breath seep from her lungs in a sigh of relief.

“…Good,” Ganondorf said, his eyes still locked on their hands, as if he was reluctant to pull away. “Good.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit shorter, guys, but no less feels-y for me. ZELDA IS MY PRECIOUS CINNAMON ROLL, OKAY? I just have a lot of feelings about an eight year old imbued with the Triforce of wisdom, and knowing _all the things_ but nto being able to articulate the things or have anyone believe her. She is too beautiful for this earth, too pure.
> 
> Once again, thank you Harryb for guidance, encouragement, and sharing in my feels.
> 
> As always, hit me up on my [tumblr](http://hyruleheart.tumblr.com) if you want to say hi. And of course, comments are always appreciated. 
> 
> Much love,  
> Castanet


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